CIA sent Nelson Mandela to jail

Peace price owner Nelson Mandela was in prison for nearly 28 years after police were told by CIA where to arrest him. A former CIA spy has revealed his key role in the arrest of Nelson Mandela, which led to the future South African president’s trial and imprisonment for almost 28 years.

The former CIA operative, Donald Rickard, was unrepentant, saying that when arrested in 1962 Mandela was “the world’s most dangerous communist outside".

ANC veterans called it a “shameful act of betrayal” that “hindered the struggle against apartheid”.